Myanmar Junta Allows
U.N. Helicopters to Deliver Aid

Ships of Supplies
From U.S. Navy
Are Turned Away

By

Tom Wright

Updated May 22, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

With United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon scheduled to visit Myanmar on Thursday, the country's military rulers approved the use of U.N. helicopters to fly in relief aid for survivors of Cyclone Nargis.

But the junta ruled out accepting any assistance from the U.S. Navy, which has had four ships laden with relief supplies anchored just off Myanmar for the past week. The ships carry heavy-lifting helicopters and amphibious-landing craft capable of delivering relief aid directly and quickly to Myanmar's devastated Irrawaddy River delta region, home to most of the estimated 134,000 people killed or missing in the disaster.

ENLARGE

The U.N.'s World Food Program welcomed the military's decision to allow 10 helicopters -- which can each carry three tons of relief supplies -- to fly to Yangon, Myanmar's main city. Marcus Prior, a Bangkok-based spokesman for the WFP, cautioned that it wasn't clear whether the helicopters would be given unfettered access to remote areas of the low-lying Irrawaddy delta, which aid workers have had trouble reaching by truck and boat.

"We're seeing considerable movement" from Myanmar's government, Mr. Prior said. "But the operating details still need to be worked out with the authorities."

Despite the guarded optimism, the junta's decision to block aid from the U.S. Navy showed that Myanmar is still resisting opening the country to foreign relief workers as many Asian governments did after the 2004 Asian tsunami.

On Wednesday, the New Light of Myanmar, the government's main English-language newspaper, said the country wouldn't accept aid from the U.S. naval task force. Such aid, the paper said, came with too many political strings attached, without specifying what they might be.

The U.S. Navy contingent, which is led by the USS Essex, a helicopter and amphibious-craft carrier, has been idling offshore for more than a week with its cargo of drinking water, emergency food rations and blankets. The U.S. denies its aid would come with any strings and has offered to have Myanmar military representatives on every helicopter flight.

The U.N.'s Mr. Ban, arriving in Bangkok on Wednesday, said aid deliveries shouldn't be politicized. "Our focus now should be on saving lives," he said. Mr. Ban is scheduled to meet on Friday with Senior Gen. Than Shwe, who heads Myanmar's junta, in an attempt to win more concessions on access. On Sunday, he will attend a meeting of international aid donors organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Yangon.

Meanwhile, the U.N. weather agency said the storm warnings issued by Myanmar to alert its population about Cyclone Nargis were sufficient and heavy loss of life was inevitable.

"Enhanced warnings would not have made a big difference," said Dieter Schiessl, director of the U.N. agency's disaster-risk-reduction unit. Warning times of five to seven days would have been necessary, he said.

Under heavy foreign pressure, Myanmar had allowed 36 U.S. C-130 transport planes filled with relief supplies to land in Yangon as of Wednesday, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Much of that aid is being distributed by the Myanmar military.

The WFP, which is coordinating the international aid response on the ground in Myanmar, has been allowed to set up two warehouses in the delta and has used boats and trucks to shuttle aid from Yangon.

But the military government has banned foreign aid workers from traveling to the delta, allowing only local employees of international nongovernmental agencies to go there. It has also delayed the granting of visas to foreign disaster-relief experts, many of whom are still waiting for approval in Bangkok. And it has so far blocked relief workers from using helicopters to reach the most remote areas of the delta, where many survivors are still without food, water and shelter almost three weeks after Cyclone Nargis struck land.

The government's official death toll stands at 78,000, with 56,000 missing. Aid agencies estimate two million people may have been displaced by the storm. U.N. officials say aid has reached only a quarter of the needy. "It's the more remote locations that we're increasingly worried about," said Chris Kaye, who heads the WFP's mission in Myanmar.

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